Woolsington Hall

The hall is built of stone, with painted ashlar dressings and edged by quoins. The roof is made of slate from the Lake district with stone gables. The house is two storeys tall, divided into three bays and a single bay wing. ==History==

Woolsington Hall was the seat of the Bell family, landowners in Dinnington. In 1828 Matthew Bell, MP for Northumberland and Deputy Lieutenant of Northumberland was listed as living at the hall. All four battalions of the 103rd (Tyneside Irish) Brigade camped briefly at Woolsington Hall in May 1915. Conditions were so bad at Woolsington Hall that many soldiers who lived locally went home rather than stay there. The brigade trained in trench fighting at nearby Ponteland, and paraded through Newcastle city centre before departing from Woolsington for Salisbury Plain. ==Recent history==

Woolsington Hall was bought by businessman Sir John Hall's Cameron Hall Developments for £1.32 million in 1994. Since 1994, Hall has proposed several developments of the Woolsington site including a football academy for Newcastle United F.C., which was later built in Little Benton. A luxury hotel and golf course was later planned for the Woolsington Hall estate. Hall was threatened with legal action by Newcastle City Council in 2005 unless he carried out repairs to Woolsington Hall. In 2013 the councillor for the Woolsington ward, George Pattison, said that "It is a complete waste for it to be standing empty. It is a beautiful building and has a lot of historical significance...If it could be restored to something of the calibre of the Mansion House in Jesmond then it would be a great asset to the ward." It was rated Category C by the register, defined as "Slow decay, no solution agreed". The Heritage at Risk Register now categorises it as in 'category F, very bad condition'. The Leazes Gates, a set of two-tonne monumental gates from Newcastle United's St James' Park stadium, were stored in the grounds of Woolsington Hall until their restoration in August 2013. It had been hoped that they would form the entrance to a new football training centre at the hall. ==See also==